T&T let a de­cent start go to waste as they suf­fered a 2-0 de­feat to Cana­da in Wednes­day's friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al at the Cen­tral Broward Re­gion­al Park in Fort Laud­erdale. The "So­ca War­riors" con­ced­ed in the 58th minute when To­saint Rick­etts fired home and fell fur­ther be­hind in the 86th minute af­ter William John­son con­vert­ed a penal­ty. T&T had the bet­ter of the ear­ly ex­changes and had Slo­vak-based strik­er Lester Pelti­er cap­i­talised on at least one of his three first half chances, things could have gone bet­ter for the for­mer Caribbean cham­pi­ons. The Cana­di­ans though, coached by T&T-born Stephen Hart, came away with the nec­es­sary boost ahead of their up­com­ing World Cup qual­i­fi­er against Pana­ma while T&T will have to re­group and pre­pare for their Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup ear­ly phase in Sep­tem­ber. On sev­en min­utes, af­ter be­ing sent through by Clyde Leon, Pelti­er slipped past Doneil Hen­ry and then shot across the goal on­ly to see the ball go inch­es past the far post with De­vorn Jorsling lurk­ing near the six-yard box.

Sev­en min­utes lat­er, T&T were re­ward­ed with a free kick which was whipped in by Kevin Moli­no but Pelti­er could not get enough on his head­er from the six-yard box and goal­keep­er Lars Hirschfield made easy work of it. Mo­ments lat­er, Pelti­er was at it again but his low shot was stopped by Hirschfield where bet­ter di­rec­tion could have seen T&T in the lead. And just when you thought the ball couldn't stop fol­low­ing him around the box, the speedy winger upped the pace on a run in from the right side, be­fore his dan­ger­ous look­ing cross was in­ter­cept­ed near the goal. Cana­da, in the midst of their World Cup cam­paign, proved to be fit­ter and more co­he­sive as the match pro­gressed. They had a good ef­fort de­nied by the up­right when Rick­etts cut in from the flank and pow­ered his ef­fort in the 35th minute. T&T coach Hut­son Charles in­tro­duced Dar­ryl Roberts at the start of the sec­ond half in place of Pelti­er, who felt a strain in his ham­string.

Cana­da start­ed bet­ter af­ter the in­ter­val and de­served­ly took the lead when Rick­etts clin­i­cal­ly shot home to Williams' left af­ter Mar­cel De Jong's ball came across from the left. T&T legs start­ed tir­ing by the 70th minute and Cana­da start­ed to take more con­trol, main­tain­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of pos­ses­sion and forc­ing T&T in the half for much of the re­main­ing min­utes. Mitchell's Van­cou­ver White­caps team­mate Rus­sell Teib­ert al­so kept T&T busy with some dart­ing runs on the left. Williams did well to save a head­er but there was noth­ing he could do to pre­vent William John­son's penal­ty from go­ing in af­ter sub­sti­tute de­fend­er Ka­reem Moses was ad­judged by Amer­i­can ref­er­ee Jair Mar­ru­fo to have used his hand to block John­son's at­tempt to find Rick­etts from the left. T&T had two fur­ther tries. One was a low ef­fort by Keon Daniel and the fi­nal ef­fort came from Cyrus who tried to curl one home on the far post just be­fore the end.

line-up

T&T: 1 Jan-Michael Williams (capt); 5.Seon Pow­er (6.Ka­reem Moses 77th), 15.Jo­evin Jones,19. Car­lyle Mitchell, (3.Rodell El­cock 70'), 14.Cur­tis Gon­za­les; 7.Lester Pelti­er (11.Dar­ryl Roberts 46'),16. Keon Daniel, 2. Clyde Leon, 9.De­vorn Jorsling (4.Daneil Cyrus 53'),10. Kevin Moli­no;), 12.Richard Roy. Sub not used: Cleon John

Cana­da: Lars Hirschfeld (Mi­lan Bor­jan '), An­dre Hain­ault, De­jan Jakovic, Doneil Hen­ry (Pe­dro Pacheco 46th), Ante Jaz­ic (capt) (Mar­cel De Jong 46'), Ter­ry Dun­field (Jonathan Beaulieu-Bour­gault 77'), Julien De Guz­man, Nik Ledger­wood, Will John­son Patrice Bernier (Rus­sell Teib­ert '),To­saint Rick­etts (Lu­cas Cav­alli­ni 77').

Match of­fi­cials

Ref­er­ee: Jair Mar­ru­fo (USA), As­sis­tant 1: Corey Rock­well (USA), As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee 2: Jonathan Wein­er (USA)